Intuition propelled information through many neural regions like a lightning streak. Data moved from input to output in a reported 20 milliseconds. The mind saw, recognized, interpreted and acted. In the blink of an eye.

The difficulty was an exponential growth of the recognition search path. The problems in the diagnosis of diseases was typical.

Normally, many shared symptoms were presented by a multitude of diseases. For example, pain, or fever could be indicated for many diseases. Each symptom pointed to several diseases.

The problem was to recognize a single pattern among many overlapping patterns. When searching for the target disease, the first selected ailment with the first presented symptom could lack the second symptom.

This meant back and forth searches, which expanded exponentially as the database of diseases increased in size. That made the process absurdly long drawn ñ theoretically, even years of search, for extensive databases.

So, in spite of their incredible speed, rapid pattern recognition on computers could never be imagined.

If the symptom was absent, IA eliminated all diseases which always exhibited the symptom. Diseases, which randomly presented the symptom were retained in both cases. So the process handled uncertainty ñ the ìMaybeî answer, which normal computer programs could not handle.

IA was proved in practice. It had powered Expert Systems acting with the speed of a simple recalculation on a spreadsheet, to recognize a disease, identify a case law or diagnose the problems of a complex machine.

It was instant, holistic, and logical. If several parallel answers could be presented, as in the multiple parameters of a power plant, recognition was instant. For the mind, where millions of parameters were simultaneously presented, real time pattern recognition was practical. And elimination was the key.

Elimination = Switching off

Elimination was switching off – inhibition. Nerve cells were known to extensively inhibit the activities of other cells to highlight context.

With access to millions of sensory inputs, the nervous system instantly inhibited ñ eliminated trillions of combinations to zero in on the right pattern. The process stoutly used “No” answers.

If a patient did not have pain, thousands of possible diseases could be ignored. If a patient could just walk into the surgery, a doctor could overlook a wide range of illnesses.

But, how could this process of elimination be applied to nerve cells? Where could the wealth of knowledge be stored?

Combinatorial coding

The mind received kaleidoscopic combinations of millions of sensations. Of these, smells were reported to be recognized through a combinatorial coding process, where nerve cells recognized combinations.

If a nerve cell had dendritic inputs, identified as A, B, C and so on to Z, it could then fire, when it received inputs at ABC, or DEF.

It recognized those combinations. The cell could identify ABC and not ABD. It would be inhibited for ABD. This recognition process was recently reported by science for olfactory neurons.

In the experiment scientists reported that even slight changes in chemical structure activated different combinations of receptors.

Thus, octanol smelled like oranges, but the similar compound octanoic acid smelled like sweat. A Nobel Prize acknowledged that discovery in 2004.

Galactic nerve cell memories

Combinatorial codes were extensively used by nature. The four “letters” in the genetic code A, C, G and T were used in combinations for the creation of a nearly infinite number of genetic sequences.

IA discusses the deeper implications of this coding discovery. Animals could differentiate between millions of smells.

Dogs could quickly sniff a few footprints of a person and determine accurately which way the person was walking. The animal’s nose could detect the relative odour strength difference between footprints only a few feet apart, to determine the direction of a trail.

Smell was identified through remembered combinations. If a nerve cell had just 26 inputs from A to Z, it could receive millions of possible combinations of inputs.

The average neuron had thousands of inputs. For IA, millions of nerve cells could give the mind galactic memories for combinations, enabling it to recognize subtle patterns in the environment.

Each cell could be a single member of a database, eliminating itself (becoming inhibited) for unrecognized combinations of inputs.

Elimination the key

Elimination was the special key, which evaluated vast combinatorial memories. Medical texts reported that the mind had a hierarchy of intelligences, which performed dedicated tasks.

For example, there was an association region, which recognized a pair of scissors using the context of its feel.

If you injured this region, you could still feel the scissors with your eyes closed, but you would not recognize it as scissors.

You still felt the context, but you would not recognize the object. So, intuition could enable nerve cells in association regions to use perception to recognize objects.

Medical research reported many such recognition regions.

Serial processing

A pattern recognition algorithm, intuition enabled the finite intelligences in the minds of living things to respond holistically within the 20 millisecond time span.

These intelligences acted serially. The first intelligence converted the kaleidoscopic combinations of sensory perceptions from the environment into nerve impulses.

The second intelligence recognized these impulses as objects and events. The third intelligence translated the recognized events into feelings.

While the activities of running, flying and swimming differed, they achieved the same objective of escaping.

Inherited nerve cell memories powered those drives in context.

The mind seamless pattern recognition

Half a second for a 100 billion nerve cells to use context to eliminate irrelevance and deliver motor output.

The time between the shadow and the scream. So, from input to output, the mind was a seamless pattern recognition machine, powered by the key secret of intuition ñ contextual elimination, from massive acquired and inherited combinatorial memories in nerve cells.